Mae West: Terrible Thirties

Book reviewer Tom Mackin mentioned MAE WEST in his short critique of "Dream Lucky: When FDR Was in the White House, Count Basie Was on the Radio, and Everyone Wore a Hat" [NY: HarperCollins, 2008].
• • Tom Mackin wrote: Hoboken resident Roxane Orgill has done her homework for "Dream Lucky: When FDR Was in the White House, Count Basie Was on the Radio, and Everyone Wore a Hat." This thin volume is packed with information on the Terrible Thirties, some of it about the scabrous treatment of black entertainers of the era.
• • Tom Mackin added: But she seems less interested in a sobering treatise on Jim Crow than in short riffs about the famous personalities of the time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Fibber McGee and Molly, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, Mae West, Benny Goodman, Amelia Earhart. The result is a tired digest of overly familiar history. Surely there is much more to tell about the black singer Billie Holiday, who had to darken her fair skin to sing with a black band; about Harlem's famed Cotton Club, where only whites were served; and about Count Basie, the renowned Red Bank pianist and bandleader, who could not read music.
— — Source: — —
• • Book Review: "In Brief"
• • Written by: Tom Mackin for New Jersey's Star-Ledger
• • Published in: The Star-Ledger — — www.nj.com
• • Published on: 11 May 2008
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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Mae West.

Mae West: Hazel Scott

Bouquets did not shower MAE WEST after her film "The Heat Is On" was released right before Christmas in December 1943. All the same, Mae enjoyed working with several talented cast mates. Among those was Hazel Scott, who played herself.
• • Born in Port au Spain, Trinidad in the month of June — on 11 June 1920 — this classical and jazz musician became one of America's premier pianists of her time.
• • A child prodigy, Hazel first faced the eighty-eights at age 3 under the tutelage of her mother. In 1924, the family relocated to the USA. By age 8, Hazel was performing in New York City and receiving scholarships to study classical music at the Juillard School of Music.
• • The glamourous vocalist was a night club headliner and radio star by the late 30s, performing with Count Basie and others.
• • Hazel Scott died of cancer in New York in 1981.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.